I have a programming job interview this week for a job where I would be doing work with Python. Any advice on how to prepare? Really any knowledge about programming interviews at all would be helpful, it doesn't have to be Python-specific.
>>53888556
Advice not personally but from a mate:
>they don't want a solution to any technical problem, they want to hear your thought process and the way you approach problems and how you deal with errors/mistakes
So yeah, don't give the result of X, tell they your method and why you did what you did to get X.
Are they still doing fizzbuzz or did they realize everyone basically has a solution memorized?
>>53889309
Fizzbuzz is just a small joke really.
Makes sure that they aren't audaciously pretending to know how to program.
>>53889309
Sadly, FizzBuzz is still remarkably efficient at filtering candidates.
>>53889393
this. I recently did recruiting for the first time, and it was alarming how many people graduating from prestigious universities with cs/ce majors or even masters degrees, with all sorts of projects listed on their resumes, could not do a simple programming task on the same difficulty as fizzbuzz
>>53888556
When they ask, how do you reverse an array, do not say [::-1]
Everyone at my work talks about fizzbuzz as the sort of test you would give if you had very little confidence that the candidate could program. If you're at that low level of confidence, I don't think you have a shot at the job anyway.
If I went into an interview and someone asked me to do fizzbuzz I would consequently be at a bit of a loss for words. Like I'd be too busy reassessing whether the interview is a waste of my time (in other words, whether I should just leave).
As for OP, I can't give you helpful general advice because you've told us nothing about the intellectual domain that you're working in. Doing work at Palantir would be very different from working at some design place. They might all use Python to varying extents, but you'll face very different kinds of questions.
Just be familiar enough with Python that stupid little shit (like the immutability of tuples) won't trip you up.
OP here -- they aren't a software company, so my guess is that they do web development stuff with Python. Would it be good for me to look into Python web development frameworks? They also said part of my job would be writing tests, so would familiarizing myself with popular Python testing frameworks be a good use of my time? Or should I simply focus on thinking about algorithms and less-specific programming things?
>>53889564
>part of my job would be writing tests
>would familiarizing myself with testing frameworks be a good use of my time?
do you seriously need answers to these kinds of questions?
>>53889580
Just because the job would entail testing does not imply that it would actually be in the interview, I'm just trying to get a feel for the specificity of interview questions
>>53889749
so ask the company. this isn't taboo shit to ask.
jesus. are 4chan people in general this hapless or is it unemployed people or what?
>>53889564
Figure out what they use, familiarize yourself with it a bit. Be interested in what they do.
>>53888556
some a little bit of meth before the interview so you look sharp and ready to work
>>53889393
>>53889430
Couldn't it just as well also be just tripping up nervous candidates?
>>53888556
Python is just a meme language with no future.
Almost python jobs consist to write scripts to handle dumb excel files.
Except you are a 50-year-old man without learning capacities, just learn another language.
>>53889309
I've never heard of fizzbuzz and just whipped this us up in Python. Can you guys tell me how retarded I am.
>"Write a program that prints the numbers from 1 to 100. But for multiples of three print “Fizz” instead of the number and for the multiples of five print “Buzz”. For numbers which are multiples of both three and five print “FizzBuzz”."for x in range(1, 101):
if x % 3 == 0 and x % 5 == 0:
print('FizzBuzz')
elif x % 3 == 0:
print('Fizz')
elif x % 5 == 0:
print('Buzz')
else:
print(x)
>>53889813
>>53889796
if you get nervous at fizzbuzz how can I be sure you won't "get nervous" when shit hits the fan on the actual job?
>>53889811
but muh deep learning
>>53889813
Thats pretty much it, yet I have witnessed people with CS degrees not being able to do it.
Just hash everything bruh.
>>53889813
Holy shit you guess he cracked fizzbuzz
>>53889903
>mfw been programming for 3 whole weeks and cracked the FizzBuzz
>>53889867
because most development work involves precisely 0 high stakes situations.
All of your code benefits from as much background research as you need - you can google shit to your heart's content
Everything you code gets packaged into commits
Every commit gets reviewed by someone else
Every incorporated commit can be rolled back
interviews and whiteboard programming scenarios don't seem representative of real work conditions in any way whatsoever. They're terrible for interview questions. Looking at someone's code - something they wrote under less or even no time constraint - is much more reasonable.
>>53889813
fizzbuzz isn't some complex algorithm. the whole point is to see if someone can work through a logic challenge under pressure. Unless you wrote that post with a gun to your head or something, it's not that impressive or worthwhile to practice.
Practice breathing and shit and you'll be better off than optimizing a fizzbuzz script.
>>53888556
explain how the function in pic related works
>>53889938
it works by being needlessly complex and archaic
>>53889933
fizzbuzz is great for filtering people. go away.
>>53889933
OP again, they requested to see some samples of stuff I did with Python so they've already seen how I code and set up an interview after seeing what I sent them. Considering that, is there a possibility I won't be doing whiteboard problems at all? The meeting is with two guys and only one of them is the lead programmer, other guy works in HR
>>53890030
>they requested to see some samples of stuff I did with Python
what's your github senpai
>>53889968
wasn't needless at the time. It was ~4 times faster than using floating point division.
>>53890044
It's not on github
>>53889938
Kek
>>53890055
>not using github for every piece of code you've ever written
>>53889979
It's really not, someone can pass fizzbuzz and still be awful at programming because it's just too easy
>>53889979
I literally said
>the whole point is to see if someone can work through a logic challenge under pressure
some people think that this is a good way to see if someone has knowledge baked into them. I think there's some merit to this argument, but it's so abundantly clear that this is not how people generally work that it shouldn't surprise anyone that there's so much backlash against it.
Stop being an obstinate faggot.
>>53890174
>Stop being an obstinate faggot.
Stop denigrating me.
>>53890188
I will if you can stop arguing stupid points.
>>53889938
evil floating point bit level hacking
>>53889772
OP should go full Seinfeld and call them under an alias pretending to be a journalist asking about common programming interview questions
>>53889938
Hacker code used to steal nudes
